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When the taps suddenly run dry in the low-slung house that Sharlene Smith shares with her ailing mother in Westbury, Johannesburg,\u00a0the 59-year-old South African is forced to leave the safety of their property, and cross dangerous territory in search of water.<\/p>\n
Read:
Salga asks for 80% increase from national budget for municipalities
Joburg residents are getting poorer and angrier<\/p>\n
Often, Smith finds what she needs at a church or a mosque, around a kilometre away. There, she joins other residents collecting supplies from large storage tanks. Sometimes, the municipality\u2019s water entity, Johannesburg Water, gives notice that the network will be shut down for maintenance or repairs, allowing her to prepare by filling bowls, buckets and the bathtub. Water tankers tend to stay away, and when they do turn up, they\u2019re escorted by the police to protect workers from gang-related shootings that\u00a0local activists say have killed 22 people since July.<\/p>\n
Water supply disruptions leave households in Westbury without running water. Image: Leon Sadiki\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n
The community, like others elsewhere in the country, is caught in a cycle of urban decline after years of mismanagement and underinvestment in basic services. Potholed\u00a0roads hinder travel,\u00a0power cuts disrupt work and education, and public safety has deteriorated. But for\u00a0Smith, it is the\u00a0lack of water, which can last for weeks at a time, that is the most pressing concern. Without it, drinking and cooking, washing and caring for her mother \u2014 while keeping\u00a0waterborne diseases\u00a0at bay \u2014\u00a0becomes so much harder.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe go without a lot of services, most recently it was electricity, but water is life,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can\u2019t do anything without it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Johannesburg, a city of 6.2 million people that\u2019s home to the Africa\u2019s biggest stock exchange and many of its largest companies, the water shortages are also impacting the ability of businesses to function, though the full economic cost is hard to determine. As local\u00a0authorities try to curb usage,\u00a0at the request of the national government,\u00a0they\u2019ve introduced punitive tariffs as well as measures such as reducing pressure or flow.\u00a0That translates into calculations over how much water people can store, and how much they can afford to spend on\u00a0securing a private, safe and reliable supply.<\/p>\n
Read:
Using borehole water? Why you could still pay municipal charges
Joburg\u2019s broken finances could doom its next mayor<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u200b\u200b\u200bn South Africa, that is particularly troubling because this is already one of the world\u2019s most unequal societies \u2014 inequality remains deeply racialised, unemployment is extraordinarily high, and millions of households live in poverty,\u201d said\u00a0Anthony Kaziboni, senior researcher at the University of Johannesburg\u2019s Centre for Social Development in Africa. \u201cThe danger\u00a0is the emergence of a two-tier water system.\u201d<\/p>\n
These issues loom\u00a0large over South Africa\u2019s Nov. 4 municipal elections. No single party is likely to win enough seats on Johannesburg\u2019s council to rule alone, as has been the case since the African National Congress lost its outright majority in the city in 2016, complicating the long-term planning and decision-making required to fix the last mile of supply for which it is responsible.<\/p>\n
Water tankers have become a common sight across they city. Residents collect water from a delivery tanker, amid ongoing supply disruptions, in the Bertrams suburb of of Johannesburg, Image: Leon Sadiki\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n
Residents collect water from a groundwater source in a park in the suburb of Kensington. Photographer: Leon Sadiki\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n
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\u201cNothing brings the failure of municipal governance closer than the realities of water failures, interruption of deliveries and unreliable delivery,\u201d said\u00a0Susan Booysen, director of research at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection. \u201cOne hopes that political parties have become more mature and aware of how essential it is to cooperate substantively and constructively.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added, \u201cthe coalition government will have to bring about a redemption. Without that, it\u2019s going to be a total collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Myriad challenges\u2019<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s constitution, entered into force in 1997, enshrined\u00a0the right to sufficient water to help promote equality in the new democracy. More\u00a0than 82% of households were connected to the network in 2022, a third more than at the end of apartheid. Yet, access has not meant reliable supply, especially in water-scarce urban centres like Johannesburg, largely because\u00a0administrations failed to set aside sufficient revenue for re-investment in water infrastructure, Booysen said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t ringfence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read: Water scarcity and commercial landlords\u2019 evolving strategies<\/p>\n
The city faces a R26.6 billion ($1.57 billion) infrastructure renewal backlog while at the current pace it would take 200 years to replace its ageing pipe system, according to estimates by the Centre for Development and Enterprise, a South African think tank.\u00a0Around half of the water that it\u00a0pumps is lost to leaks.<\/p>\n
Damaged water infrastructure on a road next to signage for the Bezuidenhout Valley Phase 3 Sewer Pipe Replacement. Image: Leo Sadiki\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n
Mellville residents demonstrating on October 28. The protest, held from 6 to 8 am disrupted traffic in the area as participants called attention to ongoing water supply disruptions and expressed solidarity with affected communities. Image: Leon Sadiki\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n
The municipal council declined to comment, and referred questions to Johannesburg Water.<\/p>\n
Its\u00a0spokesperson, Nombuso Shabalala, said that the company has \u201cshort, medium, and long-term plans to alleviate delivery\u00a0issues,\u201d including through the repair\u00a0of leaking reservoir and tower infrastructure,\u00a0as well as through active and passive leak detection,\u00a0in an emailed reply to questions. Illegal connections, theft and vandalism are also among\u00a0\u201cmyriad challenges\u201d affecting the entire nation\u2019s water supply, she added.<\/p>\n
Melville, a more middle-class neighbourhood, about four kilometres away, more people have the means to become less dependent on the municipality. But anger is mounting. At a protest on October 28, residents and business owners stood on the road chanting \u201cWe want water.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Cars honked as they passed by.<\/p>\n
The Residents\u2019 Association, contributed funds to set up tanks at a satellite police station in with combined storage of about 15 000 litres as a temporary backup system, according to its chair, Darryl Gouws. Johannesburg Water sends trucks to refill them, and volunteers manage access, but households are limited to roughly 50 litres (13 gallons) a day so that the supply can be shared.<\/p>\n
Read: Infrastructure fund delivers a return of more than 10% over 12 months<\/p>\n
On his own property, Gouws installed a tank, pump and plumbing system that feeds stored water back into his house. The expense, roughly R25 000, came after he, like plenty of other South Africans, had already spent years investing in generators, batteries, gas stoves and solar panels to protect against electricity outages \u2014 which persist although not as severely as from 2022 to 2023 after state-owned supplier Eskom improved maintenance and repairs as solar reduced demand.<\/p>\n
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\u201cNot everyone is privileged or has the spare cash laying around to be able to do that,\u201d Gouws acknowledged. In Gauteng province, where Johannesburg is located, 12% of the poorest households experience weekly water interruptions. These are people in areas that tend to be served by poorly serviced infrastructure, with more overloaded parts of the network, who earn less than $50 a month while only 1% of those earning over $3 000 a month suffer the same fate, according to Kaziboni.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Further north, in Sandton, office towers, hotels, shopping centres and corporate headquarters form the heart of the city\u2019s main financial district. Signs outside office blocks, including Nedbank, the country\u2019s fourth-largest bank, advertise another solution: \u201cBorehole water used on these premises.\u201d<\/p>\n
City authorities have received 825 applications for boreholes since October 2025, the council said in an emailed reply to questions, without providing further details. The total costs for such systems range from R60 000 to R120 000.<\/p>\n
Outside Nedbank in Sandton, left, and a borehole service provider in Bezuidenhout Valley. Image: Leon Sadiki\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n
Knock-on effects<\/p>\n
Johannesburg Water said the problems\u00a0in Westbury and Melville are linked to their dependency\u00a0on the \u201cCommando System,\u201d an interdependent network of reservoirs and related infrastructure that serves densely populated areas, including\u00a0major hospitals and universities.<\/p>\n
Because it relies on water being pumped uphill across long distances from Rand Water facilities, disruptions like power cuts or pump station breakdowns, can trigger immediate drops in reservoir levels and low pressure, according to Shabalala, the company spokesperson.\u00a0 For the system to stabilise, the reservoirs need to fill up. That means it can take time for water to start flowing again, with elevated neighbourhoods the last to recover.<\/p>\n
Private efforts to get around the shortages also\u00a0have vulnerabilities. Pumps require electricity to bring water to the surface while tanks can run out, and both fixes carry risks.\u00a0Drilling for and installing an borehole can deplete\u00a0groundwater,\u00a0erode soil or contaminate water sources. And, when too many people top up storage tanks\u00a0after\u00a0an outage, the\u00a0spike in consumption\u00a0exceeds what networks can deliver, leaving some households without water for longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are considerations we should have,\u201d said Kaziboni, the professor.\u00a0\u201cJust because you can afford it, doesn\u2019t mean that you should do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that there may soon come a point where \u201cformal access statistics tell us less and less about actual water security. A household may have a tap and therefore be counted as \u2018served\u2019\u00a0while enduring repeated outages, unsafe water, or dependence on tankers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gouws said he\u00a0switches his tank system off during severe outages when necessary to avoid drawing more water as soon as supply returns.<\/p>\n
A resident return\u0092s home after collecting water from a neighbour\u0092s borehole in the suburb of Bertrams. Image: Leon Sadiki\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n
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Supply is also an issue in the inner city, where residents collect water from a truck in the neighbourhood of Hillbrow. Image: Leon Sadiki\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n
For many businesses, operating expenses are mounting.<\/p>\n
Ruth Ndlovu manages a property containing three diners, a beauty salon and a cafe. She said disruptions began as periods of low pressure and maintenance outages around 2021, becoming much more severe in 2024. She added, \u201cWe couldn\u2019t cope.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, the landlord installed two tanks to be shared by the five businesses, but they only have sufficient capacity to cover about 48 hours, and for some tenants, that isn\u2019t enough. The cafe, for example, needs piped water for its equipment and operations.\u00a0So when the municipal supply fails and their backup is exhausted, she said they \u201chave to close shop and lose revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read: Who\u2019s delivering water and who isn\u2019t? SA\u2019s 144 authorities mapped<\/p>\n
For criminals, the shortages are creating money-making opportunities. They\u2019ve taken control of tanker operations and resell water at inflated prices in some communities, \u201cpointing to opportunistic profiteering, if not organised syndicates,\u201d The South African Human Rights Commission said.<\/p>\n
With little incentive to see the problems fixed, these gangs are actively trying to make them worse. In the port city of Durban, eight water service employees were murdered between 2022 and 2023, while in the capital city of Pretoria, security guards at a wastewater treatment plant were held at gun point in 2024 as the plant was vandalised.<\/p>\n
Residents burned tyres during a water protest that blocked the intersection of the major arteries Xavier Road and Rifle Range in the south of Johannesburg on October 28. Image: Leon Sadiki\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n
Back in Westbury, community leaders moved quickly through some streets one recent morning, past a tavern whose walls bore the\u00a0pockmarks of\u00a0bullet holes. A short walk away, behind\u00a0their property\u2019s steel gates, Smith\u2019s mother lay on a couch under three thin blankets as volunteers registered her for a special vote because she cannot travel easily to a polling station.<\/p>\n
Smith said she hopes winning parties will work together. Her message was simple:\u00a0\u201cmake our lives better, that is all that we want, nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 Bloomberg<\/p>\n
#Johannesburg #risks #total #collapse #water #network<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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